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My 17-year old son Ewan has been writing and performing songs of his own the past year and he just posted a few on Soundcloud.com at this embedded link under ‘Ewan M Turner’. The first two are songs he wrote himself, “Faded Glory,” and “Out to Brooklyn.” The third is a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Sara.” Below is a screenshot of what the page for Ewan’s music looks like, again listenable via this link.
Readers of this blog may recall guest contributions in creative writing earlier posted by Ewan Turner, my son. In 2012 he posted “My Father the Returner,” which won a Scholastic Writing Award and “A Game of Catch Among Friends.”
Ewan’s new contribution is a short story narrated by a troubled physician from an earlier era.
E. Turner, M.D. • February 6th, 1887
I shall not profane my medical standing to suggest that the findings in this case have not utterly altered the fabric of my human understanding. The experience I am about to relate fills me with great disquiet, given the outcome of several manifestations that have recently come to light. By nature, I am a skeptic, accepting only reasoned rationale and employ it to detect certain self-induced psychoses. Much discussion of noteworthy events are unproven and thoroughly unbelievable, and yet there are credulous souls who give ear to these unsubstantiated claims. The border of the dream state and that of the waking is often hard to fully determine or detect so I doubt many of the stories that circulate in this age.
But I remain open minded nonetheless and in that may lie my weakness and naiveté. Most in the field of evidence-based inquiry are fortressed away from elements of order that can be called “supernatural” or “mystical.” That nomenclature is loaded with distasteful connotations and does not accurately do justice to the experiences of sensible people like myself who have seen with keen eyes the wonders, nay the horrors of the ethereal occult. The limits of my credulity have been so fantastically strained that I have soberly considered acquiring an occupation at a desk because the effects of this study have been so shattering. My composure is broken and my will remains tied to what transpired, for you see it did not take long for my serenity to wither and die. To fully articulate this transformative instance I must begin at the very moment when our subject entered my life.
His name was Mr. Malcolm Atherton, an emaciated wreck of a man, bent, gaunt and lacking in all colorful flashes of innocence. His shoulders were submerged deep below his creased neck, his posture that of a man with the load of an entire nation upon him. In all of the streets of New York never had I seen such an astounding labor of deficient breath. His eyes were rimmed with what looked like grey charcoal and his hair was a wispy collection of black strands that barely clung to his scalp. As he entered our offices he cried out for assistance in a derisive gurgle that at first shocked the nurse by the door. She grabbed his arm in a hurried motion while her partner called for my assistant and I. Noticing the commotion I rushed over to assist my colleagues and was beset by this ever more frightening sight. Atherton’s legs had given way under the extreme weight that assaulted him, collapsing him in a crumpled heap upon the floor. Drool bubbled at the corners of his mouth and a foul stench seemed to rise off his back. It was a smell so indescribably horrific that it shook the fortitudes of my person. It was the odor of some inhuman dread, the like of which I had not sensed in all my waking years. I could not even begin to articulate the premonitions of malevolence that seemed to radiate off the shrunken frame of this pathetic man.
Wasting no time we hauled him onto an examination table and hoped to pinpoint the exact cause of his astonishingly decrepit situation. My assistant sent for the police as I made desperate attempts to glean any information from the one lying before me. I asked him his name and with a choked murmur he said:
“Malcolm Atherton. Good sir, there is something evil gnawing at my heart.”
I was visibly taken aback, never had I heard uttered words like these from a patient. Many I have dealt with have not been lucid but this man seemed to be in a realm beyond lucidity and psychosis. He remained in a state between death and life, clung to by whatever malcontented plague had found him.
“What evil?” I hurriedly asked.
“It must be removed! It must be removed!” He shouted, his voice howling in torment. His eyes rolled back in their sockets and his breath mounted to a galloping pace when suddenly his body shuddered as if a light had been quenched from within. He began to convulse on the table, his body losing all semblance of control. And then as fast as it had overcome him it stopped. He became still, his breath less rapid and his heartbeat less quickened. He remained lying unconscious but visibly alive and seemingly freed momentarily of the earlier distress.
The patient remained comatose while the police arrived. To my surprise Malcolm Atherton was well known to them by reputation. I was informed that he was born on July 6th 1865 in Providence. For a time he was greatly ambitious and interested in the exploration of the unknown world. Archeology was his profession, dealing in the forgotten sarcophagi of the Egyptian pharaohs. Atherton had recently returned from an ill-fated expedition to the tomb of Sekhemkhet II or Sekhemkhet the Great, as he is called his admirers to claim the jewels said to be stored in his sepulchre. Funded by the Egyptology wing of the American Museum of Natural History, Atherton left with twenty companions and had returned with a mere eight. Nile Virus was the probable cause of these numerous deaths but the survivors suspected their comrades had been felled by forces unknown to all manner of natural law. I have since read over Atherton’s notes and concluded that articulating the precise moment of infestation would be futile and impossible. The origin of this ailment is so unknown and malignant that I cannot with clear conscience provide my own impoverished theories.
In sincerity, the truth is so foul and wicked that men of my profession would quail at its revelation, seeing it shake the foundations of all known medical inquiry. All I can in exact certainty relate is the following: On a dark North African night our patient was exploring the southern end of the Pharaoh’s tomb when he came upon a sunken statuette embedded in the center wall of the crypts’ treasure chamber. It seemed to be a carven idol whose depiction was unlike anything known to even the most erudite Egyptologists. In no way did it resemble any of the known deities of the Nile or Nubia and for a time Atherton believed he had stumbled upon a secret religion whose very existence was unknown to all form of scholarly academics. The hieroglyphic markings were utterly foreign and the image was as hideous as it was ominously foreboding. But Atherton in his foolishness ignored the obvious malevolence of the idol and secreting it in his luggage, brought it back to New York.
Atherton was in my care by an accident of fate and it was rendered necessary that I research the field of otherworldly illnesses to make a full diagnosis. I had no means or experience in dealing with dark arts or devilry so I found it profoundly peculiar to be suggesting remedies that healed men felled by influenza, dysentery and other crippling maladies. I needed to approach this convalescing person from a foreign angle but at this point none had occurred to me. I attributed my failure to the obvious factor that my expertise in demonic expulsion was entirely lacking. His disease, I feared would not cease even at death, for by this moment I admitted that something strange lurked within the confines of Atherton’s heart, working and gnawing away, leaving his carcass a castle for an infested mind. It was my duty to spare him, as it is the duty of all well-meaning physicians, but this state of discomfort had surpassed all my medical mastery. It was time to resort to a method, suspect in origin, but entirely useful to these proceedings.
Mesmerism and hypnosis were the tactics I began to wield though they at first yielded no promising affect. He seemed to be trapped in an absolute stronghold of impenetrable conflict that could be pierced by no medical means. Finally, after multiple trials I became entirely discouraged and demoralized. I have in my possession a golden watch entrusted down from the generations for quaint solidarity and I thought it wise to use the object on Atherton in the faint hope it would expedite his healing. I dangled my golden timepiece in front of his glazed eyes and cast him into a state of vulnerable oblivion and yet his reticence was astounding. My queries were all together ignored or challenged, for I knew it was not Atherton I was speaking with. No answer was forthcoming. I knew I had to fracture the curse but then a revelation dawned on me with unnatural force: I would need to conduct open dialogue with the demon’s voice itself, not the ventriloquized frame of Atherton’s body. Instead of addressing him I would need to address the infestation and coax it out of its abode.
At this time he had been in my care for two weeks with no alteration of his condition. Several doctors were brought to my side, but neither could they shed insight on the dilemma. At this juncture I was unaware that my first headway would occur at the beginning of the third week. Once more I dangled the timepiece in front of Atherton’s dulled eyes and waited. As usual I asked him the main questions:
“What is your name?”
“Malcolm Atherton”
“When were your born?”
“July 6th 1865”
“Where were you born?” At this a wind seemed to gust above his bedside and a monstrously calamitous voiced echoed from the confines of his throat.
“Outside of my mother’s womb, you bilge rat!”
I jolted back from my position by the bedside. My thoughts flooded with a sense of wonderment and also profound perturbation. I had succeeded in splintering the icy walls that surrounded my patient. Regaining my composure I continued my interrogation with a calculating mind.
“What is afflicting you, Mr. Atherton?”
“He isn’t afflicted by any abnormality, Doctor Turner, he is merely sharing his blessed heart with me. Would you care to speak to Malcolm? I can call him for you,” the demon cackled with delight. Atherton’s tongue was moved obviously by an inner conductor, one of extreme depravity.
“No I don’t want to speak with him. I would prefer to discuss this situation with you. If we are to converse, may I know your name.” I said, my designs currently unfelt by the demon.
“I am as nameless as the mountains,” he said paradoxically as Atherton’s head rose from the pillow.
“Why do you inhabit this man?”
“He trod where it was sacred, where the paths of men should be hindered from desecration.”
“What do you gain from holding him enthralled?” I was entirely wrought by a sense of disbelief.
“The inhabiting of bodies is how I will pass to the next world.” This pronouncement shattered my weakened standing. An afterlife seemed as implausible as it was unwelcome and yet here was an extraordinary moment of revelation in that matter. The following occurrence I have never articulately spoken to an intelligent soul: The strain on Atherton’s weakened heart had become such a costly hindrance that it caused the emaciated organ to halt altogether. His eyes were enameled with hinted gray and a groan of pure, ghastly termination exuded from his mouth. A gasp of pure, primordial wretchedness erupted from him and in the instant that it began his body shook with ferocious abandon. His veins flared from his arms as a slight hissing was heard escaping from all the pores of his skin. He seemed to shrink with fantastic disillusionment, his eyes widened in disbelief as the demon acknowledged his good fortune. Every crevice of Atherton’s anatomy was shrunken and scourged from within, broken down and decomposed at a speed no human could endure.
Atherton had withered to a frame so diminished that his skin barely stretched over his protuberant bones. He was a skeleton taking on the very façade of death, a death so remarkable that at that moment he looked entirely like a statue of paralyzed fear. This situation had left my medical expertise behind; I had failed in an incredible fashion. He was trapped in a state between slumber and the finality of eternal rest, caught inside the will of a diabolical plague. He remained bound to the bed in this unresolved state without any alterations in his condition. I had invariably hastened his demise without any hope of remedy. In a matter of moments all that remained of my former patient was eradicated. What was left of Atherton vibrated with alarming strain and then in the blink of my tired eyes receded into complete oblivion. His bones and tissue had dissolved into a fine white powder splayed across the hospital cot. All that remained was this bleached pumice-like dust and the remnants of the patient’s tattered garb.
The demon seemed to have transcended his shackles and achieved whatever unworldly purpose he had wished. Atherton was gone, reduced to a collection of inhuman dust and I was left cowering in the wreckage of my impoverished sanity. My days are forever marred by this affair and I doubt anyone of respectable clinical standing shall believe what I have retold in this account. I would not have accepted these claims had I been divorced from the circumstances. But they occurred, and I will testify despite every moment of disbelief from you dear reader, that they certainly occurred. Atherton is surely dead and his demonic apparition has fled to another new world.
Some months ago The Great Gray Bridge posted a humor sketch by Ewan Munro, called “My Father the Returner.” Here’s a new guest post by Ewan, an illustrated story called “A Game of Catch Among Friends.” Credit and acknowledgment for the evocative photos below goes to Barry Feinstein.
A Game of Catch Among Friends
The wild-haired man stood, his feet close together like he was standing in a line of infantry, gazing at the three children who played with a ball. Their English voices echoed across the cobblestones of the back street as the stick-like creature approached them. He wore black sunglasses over his eyes like he was trying to conceal a darker purpose and was clad in entirely ebony attire. The boys were filled with a curious sense of wonderment towards the creature who stood like a watchful sentinel. Though short of stature he was gangly and thin, his dark suit crinkling around his shoulders. With a shuddering movement the creature moved toward the boys and a nasal cry escaped his lips. 
“Can I toss your ball?” he asked, extending a bony hand, his long fingernails flecked with bits of tobacco. The boys were wary at first; they dreaded the possibility of losing their red sphere.
“Okay,” the eldest boy said and handed the ball to the creature. He felt it in his palm, admired the smooth surface and tossed it into the sky. The boys gasped and ran to meet it as it returned to earth. It bounced across the stones into the doorway of a brick building. The frizzy haired man chased it down with lightning quick vigor and reached it before the children.
“How about again, man!” he shouted, his glasses bouncing on his nose, flinging the ball into the outstretched arms of the smallest boy.
“I’ll run for it!” The boy tossed it towards the creature as he bounded down the row of houses. He caught it in his spider-like hands.
“You’ve got a nice arm, kid.”
“Can we play hide-and-go-seek?” the boys asked as they pointed towards the industrial outcroppings of the back street.
“The world is a land of hide-and-go-seek, everyone is disappearing all around us,” he responded to the boys who stared quizzically back at him. As they were locked in strange awe of each other a loud noise clamored behind them. Six men approached carrying musical instruments in black cases. The tallest man, who was heavy-set and wore wire-framed glasses, shouted toward the creature.
“Hey, Bobby! We have to get to the theater in an hour. Let’s get in the car!”
“Okay, Albert, me and my comrades are just finishing up a game,” he parried and laughed gleefully as he wrenched the red sphere from the hands of the middle boy. He bounced it down the street at a galloping speed as if he was trying to flee from dangerous captors. The boys followed suit as they scurried in among the dilapidated buildings.
As the men at the far end of the street grew restless the children sensed their play was nearing a close.
“What’s your name?” the little blonde boy asked.
“Just call me, Mr. Jones,” he chuckled as he adjusted his sunglasses. He paused for a moment, became serious and for the first time removed the inky spectacles. His eyes were rimmed with tiredness, red and weary looking, but there was an obvious sparkle that exuded rebellion and wisdom.
“My name is Bob Dylan,” he extended his gaunt hand and gave a shake to each boy. In succession the children introduced themselves:
“I’m Rupert.”
“Thomas.”
“Timothy.”
The bulky man in the wire-rimmed glasses hustled over. “It’s time to leave.”
“Farewell, comrades, maybe I’ll see you again on Desolation Row,” he chuckled loudly into the air and waved as he went to join the men carrying the instrument cases. The boys stared towards the fleeting, frizzy haired man, longing for the play that had passed. They did not know it then but their friends and spouses would later doubt the fantastical story of the time a wild-haired visitor came to their cobbled street. 
On this anniversary of what would have been my late brother Joel’s 61st birthday, my sister Pamela and I remember him with all the force of memory and familial affection, as well as our departed parents, Earl and Sylvia. On May 4, 1978, the five us founded Undercover Books, the bookstore that would give all three of us siblings our adult careers. For those who didn’t know Joel–or who did and want to be reminded of his personality and accomplishments, which included a run for Congress in 2000 and earlier being among the very first online booksellers, several years before Amazon.com–you may read an obituary in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the remembrance I wrote that was excerpted in Shelf Awareness and Bookweb. The entire piece is pasted in below, set in the Comic Sans font to which Joel was partial (for readers able to view it that way) along with photos of him.
—-
December 9, 2009
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
It was with great regret and sadness that we write to inform you of the recent, sudden passing of our dear brother, Joel C. Turner, 58 years old.
Many of you will recall that we three siblings together opened Undercover Books, in Shaker Heights, Ohio in 1978, on May 4 of that year, with the hard-working assistance of our parents, Earl (deceased, 1992) and Sylvia (deceased, 2006). From the original location at Van Aken Shopping Center, our family-run independent chain grew to occupy a location in the historic Old Arcade of downtown Cleveland, and a shop that also featured the sale of record albums and the then-new format of CD-ROMs, in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. Joel’s role in the bookstores’ success and the good reputation we enjoyed in the book world was vital and indispensable. He was always generating exciting new ideas that drove our growth. Joel was a constant reader, a passionate believer in books and the power of the printed word. He derived tremendous satisfaction from selling books to the devoted readers whose trade we cultivated in our bookstores.
We were fortunate to open our business at a moment when throughout the country and particularly the midwest, much book retailing was migrating from older downtowns to suburban locales, as the book departments of long-established department stores and old-line independents gave way to new indies like us. Soon, we were being regularly called upon by publishers’ sales reps from all parts of the industry, as Undercover Books became a go-to store for houses eager to break out books on the national scene. Notable authors who launched books at our stores included Mark Helprin (“Winter’s Tale”), Richard North Patterson (“The Lasko Tangent”), and Walter Tevis (“Queen’s Gambit”).
The stores, indeed the Turner family home, helmed by Sylvia’s extraordinary cooking and hospitality and Earl’s gregarious nature, and Joel’s energetic raconteurship, also became a favorite stop for sales reps and authors.
By the early 1990s, competitive and economic pressures had mounted, and Joel had the vision to reduce the brick & mortar concentration of our enterprise and transform it into an operation that served businesses, corporate libraries, schools, and public institutions. As this shift occurred, the name of the business became Undercover Book Service, which soon also had an online presence, surely one of the first online booksellers. He also developed a sideline in the antiquarian and second-hand side of the trade. Joel was a true bookseller, and also served the book industry through active participation as an officer and board member of the American Booksellers Association.
In this decade, he and Sylvia moved to a lovely part of North Carolina, where he helped her live very comfortably for the remaining years of her life. After Sylvia’s death, he built for himself a beautiful home on a scenic mountaintop in the town of Bostic, Rutherford County, North Carolina, where he died in his sleep this past weekend. In addition to the two of us–his younger brother and older sister–Joel is survived by nephew and niece Benjamin and Emma Taylor; nephew Ewan Gallup Turner; brother-in law Ev Taylor; sister-in-law Kyle Gallup; cousins Stephanie Shiff Cooper and Brian Shiff; and Uncle Myer Shiff and Aunt Linda Shiff.
Plans for memorializing Joel are being considered as we write this to you. For those wishing to mark Joel’s life with a charitable donation we urge you to make contributions to the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE, http://www.abffe.com/) or for medical research in search of a cure for diabetes.
We write in sadness, but with fondness and appreciation for all the years that we three Turner siblings and our parents were recipients of your generous affection, respect, and consideration. The bookstores gave all of us, and especially Joel, great enjoyment and satisfaction, along with so many wonderful friends. Feel free to send this message on to any of your contacts in the book world.
Sincerely,
Philip Turner (philipsturner@gmail.com) and Pamela Turner (pturnertaylor@roadrunner.com)
// more. . . Please click through to the full post to see all photos.
My son Ewan won a medal for a fanciful humor sketch that he’d submitted to Scholastic’s 2012 writing awards. He and I hope you’ll enjoy the piece, which is running here as a guest post on this blog.
My Father the Returner
My father can return anything to any store anywhere, anyplace in the world. He has sent back everything from runny eggs to half gnawed peaches. He has argued and tussled, hustled and bustled. It isn’t that he is confrontational; it’s just that he has no shame. His name is Philip Turner and he is, in his own convoluted way a superhero. Not a man who can fly faster than a speeding bullet or lift a parked car, but a man who can spring fear into the hearts of humans. When managers and unsuspecting cashiers fall under the Returner’s spell no one is safe. He managed on one occasion to return an old sagging mattress and an entire pot of borscht. He was once discounted on year-old underwear because he felt it was “overly scratchy.” He has this face he makes when he is set for refund. It is between a grimace and a sneer, the countenance of a man set on retribution. He is not unlike Napoleon or Julius Caesar marching his way toward victory. I am the exact opposite of my father. I never make a scene and I never make a point.
There was this one day I remember quite distinctly, it is burned and ingrained upon my innermost psyche. We trundled off to a department store to return an item. It was a plain white shirt that looked suspiciously unassuming. I asked him why he desired to take it back. He replied because “it says it’s a medium and it didn’t fit like a medium.” I nodded ruefully. When we arrived at the store he positioned himself, like an unmoving battlement in front of the register. The woman at the counter had hair like Medusa and eyes that really could turn a man to stone.
“I bought this shirt a while ago and it says it’s medium but it doesn’t fit like a medium,” Philip said.
“Do you have a receipt?” she asked, her nasal voice dull and weary.
“Yes!” he said with delight, wrenching from his pleather fanny-pack a receipt.
“This is from four years ago,” she said, gazing at it.
“Yes.”
“Perhaps you’ve just gained weight.” My father stared into her eyes, braving, damming the danger.
“I want satisfaction and I want it now!” he bellowed. The Gorgon Queen flinched, sensing the power of an unstoppable beast of destruction. It was in this deciding moment that she cracked.
“I can offer credit,” she said. This was a big mistake, a sign of weakness.
“Credit? So you can unload socks on us? I want my money back.” She smiled a smile devoid of all hope and said she would get the manager. He emerged from a small windowless room in the back and approached the register.
“What seems to be the conundrum?” he asked. He wore a monocle, pristinely shimmering under the fluorescent lights.
“I want my money back for this shirt. It says it’s medium but it doesn’t fit like a medium,” Philip repeated. The manager’s eyebrow raised, his monocle tumbled out of his eye and onto the floor. He scrambled to recover it and as he did my father delivered the knockout punch.
“If I am not compensated then I vow I will never bring my business or that of my family here again. I will tell everyone what a sham this place is! I am Philip Stanley Turner and I demand satisfaction!” The manager turned a surprising shade of white and put his hands into the air, accepting defeat. He handed fourteen dollars across the counter with a quick palsied motion, bowing his head and trotting off. Philip smiled victoriously, savoring his conquest. I gulped and looked down, hand in pockets, trying to shoulder the embarrassment for the both of us.
Finding a Foothold in New York City This page of personal recollections of my path into publishing picks up where Philip Turner–Personal History ended, a web page complimentary to this one, about my years running Undercover Books with my family in Cleveland; from age sixteen attending two experimental educational institutions, the School on Magnolia, for […]
In the early 2000s, when I was an editorial executive with Carroll & Graf Publishers, I had the good fortune to acquire the US publishing rights to a book first published in Canada, Fatal Passage: The Story of John Rae, the Arctic Hero Who Time Forgot and Ancient Mariner: The Amazing Adventures of Samuel Hearne, the Sailor Who Walked to the Arctic Ocean, what would prove to be only the first two books on polar exploration by Ken McGoogan, who has continued to immerse himself in the subject over the past twenty years, now having published a total of six Arctic books. A key development in that immersion has been his role as a resource historian for many sailings with Adventure Canada, a travel company that takes visitors on voyages to Canada’s northern reaches and in to the Arctic itself. 
Fatal Passage chronicled the mystery of the ships HMS Terror and Erebus, which under the command of Royal Navy captain John Franklin, set off with more than 125 officers and crew on board in search of the Northwest Passage, but then disappeared never to be heard from again, at least not among Euro-centric people. Many search parties sought to learn the fate of Franklin and his men, including one helmed by John Rae, from Orkney in northern Scotland. He was the first European-based explorer to value highly the local knowledge of Inuit guides, hunters, and interpreters, who led him to eyewitnesses who’d seen hungry white seamen trekking across their lands in dire straits. They reported to Rae their understanding that to them these desperate men had engaged in cannibalism, feeding on the dead to try and save themselves. Rae’s discovery, though vetted by him with careful cross-questioning of the native witnesses, earned him a vituperative rebuke once back in England from Franklin’s wife, Jane Lady Franklin, who even enlisted Charles Dickens to editorialize against Rae. Fatal Passage effectively rehabilitated the reputation of John Rae, more than a century after it had been trashed by poobahs in Victorian England.
When it was published in the US, in 2002, the book won a Christopher Award, given to authors who produce works that “affirm the highest values of the human spirit.” McGoogan traveled from his home in Toronto to New York for the ceremony, and we began to get better acquainted as author and publisher, and as friends. Later, I made a road trip with my wife and son to Toronto and we enjoyed a dinner at Ken’s home with him and his artist wife Sheena. Another guest that night was Ken’s literary agent Beverley Slopen, from whom I’d acquired the rights to Ken’s books, and from whom I would later acquire rights to books by other Canadian authors, such as the mystery master Howard Engel, creator of the Benny Cooperman detective series.
Last December, Ken got in touch with me to extend an invitation. His latest book, Searching for Franklin: New Answers to the Great Arctic Mystery, was published in Canada last fall, and he explained to me it would be coming out in the US in the Spring of 2024. He would be coming down to New York to make a presentation on March 22 at the NY Public Library, in connection with a new exhibit, “The Awe of the Arctic” in the historic main library from March 15-July 13. A day prior to that, Ken said, he would be giving a talk at another public venue. He asked, in so many words, “Would you be interested in reading the new book, preparing some questions, and interviewing me at the first event?” After learning a few more details, including the fact there would be an honorarium to cover my preparation and for serving as his interlocutor, I readily accepted the exciting invitation.
In January, I was even more excited to learn from Ken that the venue for our joint event would be The Explorer’s Club, a venerable institution on the east side of Manhattan established in 1904. On Honourary Canadian, the sister website to this one, I put up a post promoting our talk, chronicling my longtime association with Canada and Canadian authors, and drafted what I dubbed my Canadian-adjacent bio, touching on my longtime immersion in #CANLit and in reading and publishing tales of polar exploration.
From Ken’s publisher—Douglas & McIntyre of Madeira Park, British Columbia, Canada—I received a copy of Searching for Franklin, and dove right into it. Rather than immediately noting possible questions for Ken while reading the book, I instead read it with a pencil in hand, scratching out asterisks in the margins next to passages that intrigued me, which I anticipated going back to once I’d finished the whole book, to mine them for the most resonant themes and to form the most stimulating questions I could think of for our discussion.
I found the book quite engrossing, and appreciated that it was written in multiple, contrasting styles of narrative nonfiction, though it’s all done without becoming jarring or off-putting. While most of is written in past tense, the norm for this sort of book prose, there are occasional passages in present tense, as when Ken and his fellow adventurers were actually touring the Arctic on an Adventure Canada cruise, and when they disembarked from the ship to traverse the ground where Franklin, his officers and crew, and their Inuit hunters, interpreters, and guides had trekked almost two centuries ago. Ken also presents some fascinating counter-factual possibilities that contrast with the known historical record, as he offers his best theory about what led to the tragic demise of Franklin and his two ships and the entire crew. Note with no spoiler: this new theory of his, appearing for the first time in Searching for Franklin is supported by medical reporting and highly informed speculation.
Last Thursday, the night of our discussion finally arrived. I was glad to be joined by my wife, artist Kyle Gallup, and my adult son Ewan Turner, who operates Philip Turner Book Productions with me; he is a creative writer publishing under the pen name M.G. Turner. After a friendly reception in the historic rooms of The Explorer’s Club, Ken McGoogan pulled on the rope that sounds the Club’s bell, calling the meeting to order, and an audience of what looked to be about seventy-five people took seats in the main hall. Following an introduction by Cedar Swan, the CEO of Adventure Canada, Ken gave a talk outlining his long association with the Franklin saga, going all the way back to the writing of Fatal Passage. Using slides, he described how Margaret Atwood had introduced him to Swan’s father Matthew, the founder of Adventure Canada; the many voyages he’s made with them over the past twenty years; how Franklin’s candidacy to lead the search for the Northwest Passage had been championed to the Royal Navy by Lady Franklin, even though his earlier expeditions had produced less than stellar results; John Rae’s discovery of Franklin’s fate; and the medical and dietary travails that he now believes led to the demise of so many of Franklin’s men. When he finished his presentation, it was time for our discussion.
I began, asking such questions as these (with appendices from my research in parentheses):
The discussion between the two of us transitioned into questions from members of the audience, with me calling on seven or eight people to stand and ask their questions, which were good ones. I enjoyed this part of the program very much, taking me back to my days when I moderated the community meeting of my college, Franconia College. After about an hour and twenty minutes, we concluded what had been a very enjoyable and stimulating program. The Explorer’s Club has posted it on their youtube page, so if of interest, you may view it via the link below.
I will conclude this post by making one more observation that I didn’t take the time to say last Thursday night. As my author Ruth Gruber (1911-2016)—about whom I’ve written often on this website—who I’ve observed with her spot reporting during and after WWII, and in such books as Exodus 1947: The Ship that Launched a Nation, became, in my opinion, the most prominent chronicler of DPs (displaced persons) following the war, Ken McGoogan has over the course of his six books on the Arctic become our foremost chronicler of the explorers who sailed across the Atlantic seeking navigable waterways spanning northern seas that would take them all the way to “Cathay”—a Pierre Berton for the twenty-first century. I’m glad I’ve been in a position to carry on a dialogue with Ken these past many years.
https://www.youtube.com/live/450ZwrJor5U?si=QOE_hO59YB89Z2Xf
And here is a gallery of photos from the whole night, from the reception through Ken’s talk, and then from our discussion. All photos taken by Kyle Gallup.
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Bookcase in my home office[/caption]
I established my company, Philip Turner Book Productions, in January 2009, fifteen years ago this month. It was the nadir of the Great Recession, only weeks after I’d been laid off in a big publisher’s downsizing; it turned out to be the last corporate house I would work for, an experience I wrote about in 2012. With that founding period in mind, I like to use the first month of each new year to take stock of the annum just ended, and try to set a course for the new one. In 2020, my adult son Ewan Turner began working in the business with me, and we had lots of new activity, so I had occasion to write full-length summaries of 2021 and 2022 which I published on this website and shared in my social networks.
This year, however, I’ve reached the end of January without having prepared a similar summary. I just haven’t been inclined to go through the strenuous effort of a full-form look-back at 2023, not with the future rushing in. And the new year in business has gotten off a flying start, so I’ve had little time to blog. In addition to new work quickly cropping up, I’ve undertaken an interesting assignment. I’m serving as a juror for the 2024 J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project Awards, sponsored by the Columbia Graduate Journalism School. Our shortlists will be announced in late February, and a public event for finalists and awardees will be held later, in the spring. At the moment, I’m reading intensively back and forth among approximately 100 projects that are candidates for recognition. The Lukas Prize has three categories, all in nonfiction, as you can see on their website. It’s a very rewarding experience so far, and I’m enjoying working with some new colleagues.
I’ll close this post by sharing the covers of current books by authors we represent in the literary agency portion of our business, either recently published, or soon to be out in 2024. Ewan and I are hoping to do more good work this year.
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